Paris of Troy

“Does it hurt?” my father, King Priam, asks in his scratchy voice. He’s talking about the arrow sticking out of my dick, of course. I turn my head and flash him a quick what-do-you-think look. “It looks like it hurts,” he says. No shit. I close my eyes and turn my head away from him, hoping that he will go away and pester somebody else. But I know he won’t. I’ve learned that no matter how much I ignore him, he’ll just sit there jabbering on and on like he did yesterday and the day before that. “The Greeks are quiet today,” he says. And like yesterday and the day before, I could care less what the Greeks are doing. Believe me, when you have an arrow poking out of your balls, you’re pretty much only concerned about one thing. Well, maybe two. “They’re building something big down on the beach,” he adds. They can build themselves silly for all I care. “Maybe they’re building new ships to go home in,” my father continues to prattle. That’s a pretty good guess since we destroyed most of their ships during the last battle but, on the other hand, with that crafty son-of-a-bitch Odysseus running things, you never know. Anyway, whatever they’re doing, I still don’t give a shit. For some reason, my father grows suddenly silent. All I can hear is the sound of his heavy breathing. As the quiet continues to grow, my pain-wracked brain begins to wonder why my father has finally shut up. Is he about to leave? Has he gone to sleep? Curious, I glance over at him for an answer and see that he appears to be in deep thought about something. Knowing that he will eventually tell me what’s on his mind, I close my eyes again and enjoy the silence. Unfortunately, I don’t get to enjoy it for very long. My father sighs heavily and says, “Antenor and Panthous are again advising me to return Helen back to the Greeks. What do you think?” Immediately, I open my eyes and stare at him. He has a truly sincere, pleading look on his face. I can tell that he desperately wants me to advise him otherwise. It’s the only reason he asked me. He wants me to tell him what he needs to hear. He wants me to tell him that this horrible war was justified. He wants me to ease his conscience. Only I can’t. Not now. Having spent the last three days languishing on death’s doorstep, I’ve finally come to realize how stupid this war has been. I nod at him earnestly and say, “I think you should return Helen back to the Greeks. It’ll put an end to this stupid war once and for all.” At first, my father looks stunned, then, almost in a flash, anger sweeps across his aged face. He sits bolt upright in his chair and yells, “Stupid war?” “Yes, stupid!” I holler back. If he doesn’t like it, he can hit the fucking door. Unable to contain his emotions, he stands up and points a trembling finger at me. “Have you forgotten about what the Greeks did to my sister Hesione?” he shouts. Like I could ever forget that! It’s a dead horse my father loves to beat over and over again. It happened nearly a generation ago, when that big thug Hercules suddenly showed up outside Troy’s gates claiming that he had just ridded the city of a sea monster and demanding tribute for his services. That’s the way Hercules operated. He roamed around the countryside strong-arming folks out of money by claiming to have killed imaginary monsters for them. Of course, nobody ever saw the monsters he claimed to kill but it didn’t matter much since everybody knew Hercules was a homicidal maniac — he actually slaughtered his own family with his bare hands — and folks figured it was probably safer just to give the lunatic what he wanted. Unfortunately, Troy’s king, my grandfather Laomedon, chose to do the opposite and so, in no uncertain terms, he told Hercules to beat it. It’s not hard to imagine how Hercules took that. Returning a week later with six ships and seven hundred drunken Greeks, Hercules found a weak spot in the city’s walls and soon, Troy’s streets were filled with lots of grieving widows. During the carnage, Hercules killed my grandfather and captured my aunt Hesione, whom he gave to his buddy King Telamon as a war prize. Telamon promptly carted her off to his home in Salamis, Greece where he made her his bride and Queen. Not a bad deal if you ask me, given the circumstances and all, but my father, quite understandably, thought otherwise. When dad became King of Troy, he sent his buddy Antenor off to Greece to demand Hesione’s return. The Greeks responded by laughing their asses off at my father’s demands. Needless to say, Antenor returned home empty handed. My father never forgot or forgave the insult. And that’s the real reason this stupid war continues to go on. Tit for tat. My father refuses to give Helen to the Greeks because they refused to return Hesione back to him. It’s just that simple. And that fucking stupid. “Well, I haven’t forgotten!” my father rages on. “The Greeks kidnapped my sister and refused to give her back! They even laughed at me!” Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, rolling my eyes towards the heavens. Same old story, I’ve heard it all before. “Well, they can sit out on that stinking beach and rot, for all I care!!” he roars. “Serves the bastard’s right! I’ll never return Helen back to them! Who’s laughing now!” The stupidity continues.